BANG!
A puff of white smoke erupted as a "CORPSE" seal activated on Kaede's scroll. A rotting figure materialized behind him—just in time to intercept the Suna-nin's kunai.
SCHLICK!
The poisoned blade sank hilt-deep into the zombie's chest.
"Hmph. Summoning trash?" The Suna-nin smirked, twisting the kunai. "One scratch from my poison is all it takes to—"
His gloating froze as blackened fingers clamped around his wrist.
Panicked, he drew a second kunai—jamming it upward through the zombie's jaw.
"Done. You're next, Konoha scum!"
He never saw Kaede's hand seal.
"Detonate."
The zombie's torso ruptured like overripe fruit, spraying necrotic bile onto the Suna-nin's arm. Skin blistered and peeled as toxins ate through flesh.
"Poison... doesn't work on the dead." Kaede watched coldly as the enemy's screams turned to gurgles.
Morino Isuke finished the job with a precise kunai throw.
"You... loaded them with toxins?" He eyed Kaede's scroll warily.
"Extracted from Tonbo's corpse," Kaede admitted, summoning another shield. "Suna's own medicine."
Across the chaotic battlefield, Kaede's macabre tactics reshaped local skirmishes:
Zombie human shields splitting enemy focus
Suicide bombers exploiting hesitation
Toxic splash damage from ruptured cadavers
By the third Suna poison-gas barrage, whispers spread among Konoha ranks:
"That medic... turns their dead against them!"
A particularly gruesome spectacle unfolded as one zombie kicked a Suna chunin's chest inward—shattering its own leg in the process.
"Pity I didn't rig this one with explosives," Kaede mused, already resealing the crippled undead.
The truth was far darker.
If unleashed fully, his Corpse Release could trigger a zombie pandemic—infected Suna-nin returning to camp, spreading the curse exponentially...
But that would paint a target even a Kage couldn't survive.
"This isn't my war to win," Kaede thought, watching another zombie kamikaze into enemy lines. "Not yet."
In the command tent, Hatake Sakumo reviewed casualty reports with a clenched jaw.
"Forty-seven more to poison today."
The "White Fang of Konoha" despised Hiruzen's conservative strategy—trading lives like chips in a rigged game.
Suna's invasion demanded decisive action, not this slow bleed.
Yet as commander, he waited—for Chiyo's puppet brigade to show themselves.
A scout burst in: "Chiyo's taken the field!"
Sakumo's tanto gleamed as he stood. "At last."
Earlier reports had detailed Konoha's emerging talents:
Inuzuka Tsume and her one-eyed war hound Kuromaru slaying two jonin.
The "Dead Soul Prodigy"—Kaede Madoka—claiming eight kills (three direct, five assisted).
Sakumo allowed himself a grim smile.
Hiruzen loved such wildcard factors—unpredictable talents that unbalanced enemy calculations.
But none compared to the true phenom:
"Namikaze Minato... 13 years old and already mastering Hiraishin."
The boy was rewriting battlefront physics in the Earth Country theater. Against that brilliance, even Kaede's necromancy paled.
Now, as Sakumo strode toward Chiyo's puppets, one thought burned:
"End this. Before more children must become monsters."
(To be continued...)